Requiem for What Could Have Been
by Mango Marbles
Summary: Sam receives his admissions notification letter from Stanford, only it doesn't say what he expected it would. What he hoped it would. Pre-series AU.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **Warning:** Sadness. Sad thoughts.

* * *

" _We are sorry to inform you that…"_

Sam rubs his eyes and reads the letter again, but the words haven't changed.

" _Dear Samuel Winchester,_

" _We are sorry to inform you that we are unable to offer you admission to Stanford University. The limited number of spaces we have available, and the incredible talents of all applicants, made…"_

So, this is it. His chance to get out: gone. The universities he applied to don't want him, and he can't blame them. He wouldn't want him either. One of his letters of recommendation had his name spelled wrong. They never stuck around in one town long enough for any teachers to get to know him, so the letters sounded like they were written by complete strangers.

And in a way, Sam thought, they were.

Receiving his notification letter was a day that he'd been looking forward to for months, a day he looked forward to even before he applied. His chance to finally chase normalcy and leave behind a life he never liked. Only, he never expected that admission letter to _deny_ him admission.

He refolds the letter along its perfect creases and tucks it into the bottom of his bag with numb fingers. He lays down and stares at the ceiling, no longer feeling the need for motion. Having all of his hopes and dreams drained out of him in a single moment leaves him exhausted, and he's glad that he's the only one home. Maybe. Dad and Dean are finishing a hunt, will be away for just another day or two. He stayed behind, because even if his dad had mixed up priorities, he still cares about his sons receiving a high school diploma.

Only, Sam was hoping to add a college diploma to his education. _Was_.

He runs his hand over his face and laughs to himself. He should've seen this coming. It's stupid to think that a college would want him. It's stupid to think that he could be rescued from a life he resents.

The lights seem dimmer, somehow, shadowed by his grief—if that's what he feels in the middle of the void swallowing him from the inside. He's drowning. If he closes his eyes, he might be able to pretend it's all just a dream. He'll wake up and the real letter will come in the mail, the one that offers him a way to get out before he's killed in a quest for vengeance that isn't his.

Maybe he should burn the letter. Turn it into ashes the way it turned his future into ashes, because now that's the only way he'll be leaving the world. On a pyre set aflame.

There's no point anymore. He lets the TV stay on and broadcast monotonous programs for the illusion of not being alone, but he's never felt more alone in his life than he does now.

There's a piece of him missing, taken away by a single letter in a single moment. But he wonders if he ever had that piece to begin with. He wonders if he's always been incomplete, and if he'll always be that way.

He thinks of the other kids his age, the ones who got a letter with a different message. The ones who live in actual houses with parents who have stable jobs and always make it home in time for family dinner that isn't heated up from a can or a box. The ones who have parents who encouraged them to apply to college. The ones who had a chance in the first place.

Sam has… Dean? Maybe. But Dean has Dad and Dean has hunting, and Sam doesn't have Dean anymore. He's pretty sure he never had Dad to begin with, the man has other priorities.

So, he's left with nothing. Nothing but broken pieces of a delusional dream all but forgotten at the bottom of his bag.

Dad and Dean come back a day or two later (he's not keeping track of the time), and he hasn't moved much in their absence. Sometimes, he puts his fingertips over the pulse point on his neck just to check if he's still alive, and teeters on the verge of disappointment every time he gets his answer.

They're tired, though, so they don't pay much attention to him. They clean up and discuss the hunt a little bit. Then, they go to bed and Sam's left in the darkness to stare at the ceiling, listening to their soft breathing and knowing that he doesn't belong in that scene.

* * *

Can someone fade away so completely as to have never existed in the first place? What's the secret? The meaning to it all, if there is one.

Dean wakes up before him, and it's not until he's being woken up that he realizes he was asleep in the first place.

"Sam. Sammy," Dean says. "It's not like you to sleep in on a school day. You always drag my ass out of bed to get your ass there on time. You feeling okay?"

"Not really," Sam says.

Dean frowns and looks at Sam, really looks. Like he's trying to find something, but all Sam feels is nothing.

"Well, we're leaving soon anyway," Dean says. "You don't need to go back to school. We'll just enroll you in the next town."

Sam doesn't say anything and rolls over so he's facing the wall. Dean doesn't ask anymore questions. The lights are kept off and the shades closed. Whatever Dean and Dad spend the day doing, they do it in darkness.

* * *

Rejection stings, like the disappointed, silent stare of his dad after he messes up on a hunt. The unspoken questions. Why isn't he like Dean? Why can't he be better?

Dean drives him to school every morning in their new town, a small town. The kind where everyone knows everyone and they automatically don't belong.

Sam walks towards the main doors, but only until he hears the roar of the Impala's engine as Dean drives away. Then, he turns to walk around the high school building and to a lake blocks away. His backpack doesn't have books anymore, and he's almost surprised that Dean hasn't noticed. That Dean believes him everyday when he says that he doesn't have any homework, so that's why he's just laying around instead of surrounding himself with open books and notebooks.

The walk to the lake is almost nice. The peace he feels is the most he's felt since reading his letter from Stanford, the one he has memorized word-for-word. The one that's weakening at the creases, along which it's been refolded again and again. Every read-through steals another piece of him, leaving him emptier.

There's a knife in his bag, a change of clothes, and not much else. Some days, he sits at the lake and thinks of the knife. He doesn't grab it. He's almost afraid to touch it. It's not about hurting himself or going beyond that. He's already dead on the inside, and he doesn't have the energy to open his bag.

He thinks of the change of clothes in his bag. Maybe he should just leave, that was the original plan after all. Run to Stanford in search of a life that doesn't make him feel like the ghosts they hunt. But he doesn't have anywhere to go because no one else wants him. He spends the rest of the day wondering if even Dean and Dad want him, or if they, deep inside, don't want him anymore than colleges do. If everything they do for him is out of obligation and nothing more.

He walks home when he thinks the sun has sunk far enough in the sky that school should be done. Sometimes, someone else is at the motel room. Usually, he has the room to himself.

Dean comes back a couple of hours after Sam, who's continuing his daily routine with laying on the far bed and staring at the ceiling and walls, but not seeing much of anything. Dean has a brilliant grin on his face, and he winks at Sam when he notices he's being watched.

"Don't know why you're wasting your time in here, Sammy. For a small town, there are a lot of pretty girls who want to spend some time with a man they _haven't_ known their entire lives," he says. He takes his spot on the other bed, back against the headboard and remote in his hand. "Man, I'm loving it here."

The radiance of Dean's zest for life hurts, and Sam feels lower than he did. He turns to face away from Dean, plagued by the sudden fear that he'll leech away that happiness from Dean in a futile attempt to drive away the emptiness. He's afraid that his presence alone will be enough to leave Dean feeling just as empty.

He can't do that to his brother. He can't let the darkness shrouding him poison Dean's light. It's not fair.

It's just… not fair.

"Bad day at school?" Dean asks, his tone now somber. Concerned.

"Something like that," Sam says. He doesn't have the heart to tell Dean that everyday is bad because he's still breathing. Because he can't just fall asleep and stay that way.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Not really."

Dean leaves him be, and he feels as close to content as he can get in the silence. At first, the loneliness suffocated him. Now, he finds safety in it.

* * *

John storms into the room. "What the hell, Sam?" he asks.

Sam sits up and faces his dad, who has rage written all over his face. Dean looks between the two of them, poised like he's ready to intervene, but uncertain as to whether he should.

"What?" Sam asks.

If anything, the question makes John look angrier. Like Sam should know what he's talking about, but Sam knows only a few things with certainty now. Like that the world is composed only of shades of grey and that all of the color has gone to someone else, never him.

"Why the hell am I getting calls from the high school asking for confirmation about when you're going to start attending because you apparently haven't shown up for a single day?"

Now, Dean looks shocked and confused, and they're both staring at him.

"Why does it matter if I go to school?" Sam asks. "What's the point?"

"You go to get your degree, Sam," John said.

" _What's the point?_ " Sam asks. "What am I going to do with a high school degree?"

John and Dean look like they don't have an answer to give him. So, in their stunned silence, Sam digs out his Stanford letter from its home at the bottom of his bag and hands it to John.

"What's the point?" Sam asks again. "Why get a degree if I'm not going to do anything with it?"

He leaves the motel room with the letter still in John's hands. Dean calls after him at first, but no one comes after him.

* * *

"That's why you spend so much time just… laying there, isn't it?" Dean asks, almost a week later. He doesn't let Sam out of his sight anymore.

Sam shrugs.

"You wanted to leave."

"I don't have anywhere to go."

"But you tried to leave," Dean says.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Sam took a deep, slow breath. "I can't do this, Dean. I'm not a hunter."

"Sure, you are."

"No. I'm not like you and Dad. Every time we kill something, I feel like I'm the one dying."

"Sammy…"

"I'm done talking about it."

Dean tries to start the conversation a few more times after that, but stops when Sam refuses to respond.

* * *

It's a ghost hunt that pushes them into acknowledging how much of an issue one piece of paper has become. Well, a ghost possession.

Sam's limbs aren't his own, and the disconnect from life he felt before is amplified. When he speaks, it's his voice, but not his words. He knew the moment he was possessed, the feeling of invasion. The feeling that there's something under his skin that he can't get out.

But he never fights it. He lets the ghost take over motions that require too much effort for him to do on his own. He's almost happy to let someone else take control over his life, because he's too lost to know where to go on his own.

It's cold, but he thinks that he might not deserve warmth. Wind blows around him, almost tips him forwards, and he hears familiar voices being carried on it. Calling for him.

He steps closer to the edge, uncertain if the movements are the ghost's or his own. Water crashes against the bottom of the cliff, and he doesn't think that the fall is high enough to kill him. Not unless he lands on the spiked rocks tall enough to stick out of the water's surface. With the number of them, he thinks that death or severe injury is quite likely from a fall.

He just can't bring himself to care about that.

He takes another step, a tug on the back of his shirt makes him turn around. But the grip doesn't hold and his precarious footing leaves him watching in slow motion as Dean's face pales and becomes horrified. His hand is reaching towards Sam and his mouth is wide open in a scream that Sam doesn't hear.

He used to be afraid of falling from heights, but he always thought it would be different.

There's just darkness.

* * *

Sam's eyes open despite the weight of his eyelids. Dean's face comes into focus above him, water dripping off of hair that usually sticks up. His eyes are red and he's talking in a frantic tone.

"You're gonna be okay, Sammy. We got that bastard out. Dad burned his bones, okay?" Dean says. "Dad's getting help. We're gonna get you all fixed up, okay? We're gonna fix everything. I'm gonna fix you. I'll take care of everything, okay? Everything. Okay, Sammy? You hear me? It's all gonna be alright. I'm here. I'm _here_."

Sam finds that he can't move, it hurts when he tries. But the pain is the first thing that feels real in so long, that he almost welcomes it.

Dean continues his nonsensical stream of promises to fix things that are broken beyond repair. Sam closes his eyes again, and he wants to believe Dean. He wants to believe that there can be something good again.

But he hasn't been okay since the second he tore open a letter addressed to him from Stanford University.

" _We are sorry to inform you that…"_

* * *

 **Author's Note:** If you're feeling down or depressed, please talk to someone. It's okay to not be okay, but you don't have to go through anything alone. People are willing to help, even if it doesn't always feel like it.

Please leave a review. This is something that I'm leaving tentatively complete for now. If there's interest, I might come back and revisit it in the future.


End file.
